Discovering light amidst darkness in 'Cat' and 'Endgame'

David Brooks Andrews

Wednesday

Feb 25, 2009 at 12:01 AM

Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" may not be as complex, surprising or packed with ideas as some more recent plays are, but it sure offers incredible acting opportunities. As a result, it can be enormously satisfying to watch. Especially when you have actors who know how to throw sparks as well as Georgia Lyman and Kelby Akin do in the Lyric Stage Company of Boston's production of "Cat."

Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" may not be as complex, surprising or packed with ideas as some more recent plays are, but it sure offers incredible acting opportunities. As a result, it can be enormously satisfying to watch. Especially when you have actors who know how to throw sparks as well as Georgia Lyman and Kelby Akin do in the Lyric Stage Company of Boston's production of "Cat."

Ms. Lyman as Maggie is extraordinarily talented at honing the specific emotional barb to each attack she makes on her disinterested husband, Brick, needling him, trying to get him to pay attention to her as a woman, lover, and, she hopes, bearer of his child. She's so alive and electrically charged that this show is worth seeing for her performance alone.

Brick is a more passive character than Maggie, but as Brick, Mr. Akin is excellent in his cool rebuffs of her, when he hasn't set down his glass of Echo Springs liquor to lunge at her with his crutch. Unlike the 1958 film version, in this version of the play (there are several), Brick's malaise is clearly rooted in his inability to deal with homosexual feelings he had and still has for a friend who's now dead. This makes for a more realistic story.

Spiro Veloudos, artistic director of the Lyric, has courageously taken on the role of Big Daddy, whose enormous wealth and impending death have all family members scrambling to end up on top. Mr. Veloudos is big enough physically and in his presence to fill the role. At times he commands the stage, but he hasn't reached quite the same level of emotional specificity that Ms. Lyman and Mr. Akin have in their performances. A hoarse voice may have hindered him somewhat during the opening performance.

The actors in the smaller roles do well, particularly Cheryl McMahon as Big Mama, whose head is filled with more illusions than reality, and the three young child actors as Mae and Gooper's little no-neck monsters. Elisa McDonald as Mae is a little over-the-top when syrupy sweet, but she's better in her fighting mode.

Janie E. Howland's set of a '50s bedroom, where all the action takes place, is dreamy and evocative. Scott Edmiston has done a superb job directing this show, making it a very compelling and absorbing production.

Who would ever have thought that 75 minutes of watching four characters wait for the end to come could be as exhilarating, poignant and humorous as it is in the American Repertory Theatre's production of Samuel Beckett's "Endgame"?

When they last staged the play 25 years ago — why did they wait so long to do it again? — they managed to draw the famous playwright's ire by setting the play in a bombed-out subway station rather than in a single room and by giving it other modern urban twists. But this time, under the excellent direction of Marcus Stern, ART apparently follows most every direction given by Beckett. And it stands them in good stead. Too bad Beckett's no longer here to see the show (he died in 1989). But fortunately, we are.

Don't go to the show expecting a realistic plot and a Hollywood ending. After all, this is Samuel Beckett, and it is theater of the absurd. But by working outside of realism, he gives us a play that feels all the more real, getting at the essence of mortality — its ultimate bleakness and yet how we stave it off through little moments, often with the help of humor.

Hamm (Will LeBow) is the blind master, unable to stand, constantly blowing his whistle to call for his servant/son, Clov (Thomas Derrah), to come assist him. Clov's first task of the day is to open the curtains on the room's two windows, only to reveal that they are boarded up with just a small slit to peer at the world through.

In two trashcans that barely rise above the floor, Nagg (Remo Airaldi) and Nell (Karen McDonald), Hamm's elderly parents, live. All we see of them are their white heads, when the lids come off the cans.

To be sure, this sounds bleak, but what each of them does with the little they have to hold off the darkness makes them endearing, and they're likely to remind you of yourself. One even begins to feel sympathy for the tyrant Hamm.

Mr. Derrah's Clov makes a game of sliding his feet down the outside of the stepladder every time he descends. Hamm insists on being rolled in his chair to the exact center of the room, even though his blindness prevents him from knowing where that is. Nagg asks Nell to scratch his back before she retreats into her can. "Rub it on the rim," she says. Don't tell me you can't see yourself in that exchange.

You should also be able to recognize wonderful vaudeville humor and rhythms in these characters.

Mr. Airaldi and Ms. McDonald beautifully capture the tenderness and delight in little things that older couples sometimes develop. Mr. Derrah is excellent at being playful in his servitude without going too far. Mr. LeBow has the bark of a tyrant down well, but one would like to see a little more variety of emotions underneath the bark.

Andromache Chalfant's set is exquisite in its bleakness — a nearly empty room painted in shades of white, gray and brown, as if it were an Andrew Wyeth painting.

"What is there to keep me here?" asks the servant Clov. "The dialogue," responds Hamm, as if the two are speaking for all of us on Earth.

Well, the dialogue certainly does keep us riveted during this show. And it's a joy to come away from the theater feeling a deeper sense of humanity and even hope in the midst of darkness, whether that darkness is the characters', our own or society's as a whole.

"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"

What: Tennessee Williams' classic play about a family tearing itself apart.

Where: The Lyric Stage Company of Boston, 140 Clarendon St., Boston.

When: Through March 14.

Tickets: Range from $25 to $50 and can be purchased by calling (617) 585-5678 or at www.lyricstage.com. Ask about validated parking.

"Endgame"

What: Samuel Beckett's comic-tragic play about a family of sorts waiting for the end to come.

Where: American Repertory Theatre, 64 Brattle St., Cambridge.

When: Through March 15.

Tickets: Range from $25 to $79 and can be purchased by calling (617) 547-8300 or at www.amrep.org.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.